International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters November 2005, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 27-54
The Phases of Disaster as a Relationship Between Structure and Meaning: A Narrative Analysis of the 1947 Texas City Explosion
Brian K. Richardson The University of North Texas The Department of Communication Studies P.O. Box 305268 Denton, TX 76203-5268 [email protected]
Developing disaster phase models has been useful, particularly for understanding response efforts to emergencies and disasters. However, such models are limited in their ability to explain the phases encountered by a social collective, or community, as it progresses through response and recovery efforts. This study examined phases of disaster response and recovery as a sociological problem. A grounded-theory analysis was used to examine 60 personal narratives of the 1947 Texas City explosion, which is an example of a cosmology episode (Weick 1985). Survivors of the explosion provided narrative accounts describing their memories of the incident. Results support the idea that social collectives depend upon a transactional relationship between structure and meaning to make sense of events. The study develops a phase model depicting four phases experienced by the Texas City community prior to, during, and after the disaster. This study reveals contributions gained through analysis of personal narratives to illuminate the relationship between disaster and human activity.
Both scholars and practitioners have routinely described disasters as occurring in phases (Neal 1997). Indeed, phase models have been developed in order to assign order and rationality to the very messy, complex reality of natural and technological disasters, and human responses to them. The most popular of these phase models stems from reports of the National Governor’s Association (1979) and Drabek (1986), which suggested that disasters can be delineated into four phases, specifically preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. While intended to aid in the organization of disaster research, this phase model, and others like it, have generated just as